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Wednesday, December 19, 2012

toasty oatmeal muffins

Okay. So you know those oatmeal muffins that I make? The ones that I’ve written about and that Aimee raves about? The ones I serve to everyone, take to breakfasts, and eat like candy? Well, I decided to write about them for my newspaper column (back when I had a newspaper column), but then my husband dropped a bombshell.

“I don’t like them,” he said. “They’re gummy."

Which is ridiculous because they are most certainly not gummy, but I couldn’t very well write about something as basic as an oatmeal muffin without my husband’s seal of approval. It would feel deceitful. So, grumbling under my breath, I set the recipe aside.

But this week when I was at the library, I picked up the most recent Cook’s Illustrated. In it I found, lo and behold, a recipe for an oatmeal muffin. And knowing that magazine, any recipe they put out is, they believe, the best one ever. I read through it, became intrigued, and then actually shelled out 25 cents to make a photocopy.

The goal of the article's author/chef was to make a very oatmeal-y muffin but without any gumminess (because I guess my husband isn't the only one). The trick? Toast lots of oats in a spot of butter until golden brown and then blitz them in food processor. The resulting caramel-y oat flour makes for a gorgeously speckled muffin.

Melt 2 tablespoons of butter in a skillet. Add the oats and stir over medium heat for about 6-8 minutes until toasty brown. Blitz into flour in the food processor—30 seconds should do it. Addt the remaining dry ingredients (not the brown sugar) and blitz to combine.

Melt the remaining 6 tablespoons of butter. In a large bowl, whisk the butter with the sugar. Add the eggs and milk. Whisk in the dry ingredients. The batter will be very thin. Allow to rest at room temperature for 20 minutes to thicken up before ladling into paper-lined muffin tins.

2 comments:

I'll try these, although I think the oatmeal muffin recipe I have is the best. One of my students gave me the recipe and I haven't found a better muffin anywhere. I'm leery of using butter in quick breads - I think oil works better, BUT the toasting thing is intriguing, so I'm game.(my recipe is here - they have blueberries in them: http://thriftathome.blogspot.com/2011/01/sonjas-oatmeal-blueberry-muffins.html)